Kate Goldbeck, the author of the book I now call my favorite romance I’ve ever read, You, Again, describes her debut novel as a gender bent, modern take on the Nora Roberts classic When Harry Met Sally. And though before I went into this book I was skeptical (When Harry Met Sally is iconic for a reason—few stories, written or filmed, have been able to come close), I decided to give it a try anyway. Let me tell you, I was blown away.
You, Again doesn’t bother with preambles. It doesn’t bother building up the meet cute. Josh and Ari meet on the first page in what could possibly be best described as a “meet angry.” Neither is happy to have encountered the other. Josh is a short-tempered chef, on his way to his new girl’s apartment where he plans to cook her a meal that will take him special equipment to do so. Ari just wants him to sign her petition and she tries to get him to do so by badgering him and guilting him into it.
It'll be mere hours until they meet again, as he shows up at her apartment, hoping to be let in. That’s when they both realize that the girl Josh is dating is also Ari’s roommate and friend with benefits.
Needless to say, their first encounter doesn’t go well. And neither does their second. And their third is also not so great. But by the fourth a connection is established, and with both Josh and Ari each reeling from separate break ups and other life-altering situations, they find a safe space in each other and thus an inadvertent, odd friendship of sorts begins.
Ari and Josh are total opposites. Josh, though snarky and with a general pessimistic view of life is a hopeless romantic. Ari, who hosts a bubbling personality feels that she can sleep her way out of the pain of her last break up with any and every stranger who’ll have her. She’s sworn off relationships. Yet somehow, the bond of heartache has them both eating pizza in their respective homes and watching old movies on the phone with each other late into the night.
But even as they both openly and humorously reject each other as romantic, let alone sexual, partners something begins to brew in their relationship that is bound to come to a bubbling, boiling point.
In You, Again, Goldbeck hasn’t just recreated two of the most beloved characters known to romance film lovers, but she’s pulled off a realistic dynamic between two people who start off lost and broken and who learn to put the pieces of their own messed up lives together in time to realize that they too can have their own happy ending with each other.
Far more than just her characterization, Goldbeck’s prose is elevated. She displays a distinct skill for marrying the world around these characters to their actions, their words, and their emotions. Every word is chosen with care, every sentence is tied in deeper and layered ways to the psyches of Ari and Josh. We get a crystal yet poetic view into their inner worlds so that we understand how and why these two are practically addicted to self-sabotage. Goldbeck lands the jump when bringing them together by playing up both their vulnerabilities—some of them soft, some of them dark—in order to create a credible third act break up and a happy ending that is suitable to the voice and tone of the story.
I’m a fan of romance stories, but it isn’t always easy for me to find something that will so thoroughly take me away. I also only cry with stories that are devastating and yet You, Again pulled tears from me on a couple of occasions. That thing that I’m always searching for, that hope I cling to when I pick up a romance novel? You, Again has it. All of it.
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Interested in adding You, Again to your TBR? Snag a copy for yourself here!